The fire college trained using that foam for years.
“They said it’s very unlikely you’re going to get cancer.
No one knows,” Flores said.
Flores’ is one of five residential wells that tested above the maximum level allowed in drinking water by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Tests on the well in August and September showed elevated levels of the compounds, also referred to as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
After the college well tested above the limits, the Florida Department of Health in Marion County began contacting nearby residents and businesses to ask for permission to test their wells.
I’ve been there for over 30 years and drink the water every day,” she said.
“We all have issues, but I don’t know if anything is related to the water,” Lawson said.
He said DOH personnel try to contact residents in person, by leaving door hangers and through the mail.
Concerns over PFAS are nothing new.

Courtesy photo 1 / 1 Dawn-Marie Stevens and her family are stocked up on water in bottles and jugs, which they and their pets are drinking while they wait to see if nearby homes in Robinson Township are contaminated with PFAS.
Officials were helpful, Barlow said, but they did not have all the answers.
“They’re looking for answers.” Barlow, a president of the Parent-Teacher Association at Robinson Elementary School for seven years, said she and her family switched to bottled water when the initial results were released Oct. 29.
While the school was immediately supplied with bottled water for drinking and cooking, many township residents have also switched to bottled water at home to avoid drinking their well water.
“There’s always something new you can test for.
He said it took less than a week to receive the results, which found no traces of PFAS, and cost him $275.
“I am responsible for my family’s well-being.” Wagenmaker, who is married with five children, has lived on the Robinson Township property for almost 20 years.
“I can see if you had water that was contaminated and an entity that was found to be responsible, they should be held responsible to the extent that they had knowledge,” he said.
Michigan is in the midst of a statewide study of PFAS, which led to the discovery at the Robinson Township school.
“Nobody’s given anybody clear-cut answers of what the next course of action is going to be if this is found in the few homes that they did test,” Stevens said.

Courtesy photo 1 / 1 Dawn-Marie Stevens and her family are stocked up on water in bottles and jugs, which they and their pets are drinking while they wait to see if nearby homes in Robinson Township are contaminated with PFAS.
Officials were helpful, Barlow said, but they did not have all the answers.
“They’re looking for answers.” Barlow, a president of the Parent-Teacher Association at Robinson Elementary School for seven years, said she and her family switched to bottled water when the initial results were released Oct. 29.
While the school was immediately supplied with bottled water for drinking and cooking, many township residents have also switched to bottled water at home to avoid drinking their well water.
“There’s always something new you can test for.
He said it took less than a week to receive the results, which found no traces of PFAS, and cost him $275.
“I am responsible for my family’s well-being.” Wagenmaker, who is married with five children, has lived on the Robinson Township property for almost 20 years.
“I can see if you had water that was contaminated and an entity that was found to be responsible, they should be held responsible to the extent that they had knowledge,” he said.
Michigan is in the midst of a statewide study of PFAS, which led to the discovery at the Robinson Township school.
“Nobody’s given anybody clear-cut answers of what the next course of action is going to be if this is found in the few homes that they did test,” Stevens said.

Courtesy photo 1 / 1 Dawn-Marie Stevens and her family are stocked up on water in bottles and jugs, which they and their pets are drinking while they wait to see if nearby homes in Robinson Township are contaminated with PFAS.
Officials were helpful, Barlow said, but they did not have all the answers.
“They’re looking for answers.” Barlow, a president of the Parent-Teacher Association at Robinson Elementary School for seven years, said she and her family switched to bottled water when the initial results were released Oct. 29.
While the school was immediately supplied with bottled water for drinking and cooking, many township residents have also switched to bottled water at home to avoid drinking their well water.
“There’s always something new you can test for.
He said it took less than a week to receive the results, which found no traces of PFAS, and cost him $275.
“I am responsible for my family’s well-being.” Wagenmaker, who is married with five children, has lived on the Robinson Township property for almost 20 years.
“I can see if you had water that was contaminated and an entity that was found to be responsible, they should be held responsible to the extent that they had knowledge,” he said.
Michigan is in the midst of a statewide study of PFAS, which led to the discovery at the Robinson Township school.
“Nobody’s given anybody clear-cut answers of what the next course of action is going to be if this is found in the few homes that they did test,” Stevens said.

Now, PFAS’s have been found in the groundwater below Cannon Air Force Base—and in wells that were tested off-base.
And so, too, do health impacts from exposure to the chemicals.
And in off-base wells, including those that supply drinking water to dairies, they detected levels ranging from 25 to 1,600 nanograms per liter.
In response to the investigation’s results, in late September the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) requested that the Air Force expand testing, re-sample wells on the base and provide alternative drinking water to people whose wells are contaminated.
Then, on October 16, NMED, the New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) and the New Mexico Department of Agriculture (NMDA) announced to the larger public that the Air Force had informed them of contaminated wells on and off the base.
In their announcement, the three state agencies said that until further testing confirms otherwise, all residents and businesses with private wells within a four-mile radius of the entire Cannon Air Force Base property should use bottled water.
There are more than 150 dairies in New Mexico, most of which are in southeastern New Mexico.
That means the Air Force must report all its test results to the state.
“Residents deserve an action plan that puts the health and safety of the community first.” He said he’ll continue working with his congressional colleagues to get answers from the Defense Department and Cannon Air Force Base officials, “to ensure that we have a complete assessment of the impact of the contaminated water sources.” Luján added that his office will continue offering assistance to local governments.
Groundwater is an important resource in New Mexico, particularly in eastern New Mexico where Roosevelt and Curry counties rely entirely on groundwater for drinking water, irrigation and municipal and industrial supplies.

Southampton Town officials said last week that they are unconvinced a former town landfill in East Quogue — a site where perfluorinated compounds were detected in the groundwater last spring at record levels for Long Island — is the source of drinking water contamination in the area.
The compounds, which were used in fire suppression foam and other products, have been detected by the Suffolk County Department of Health Services in 45 private wells near the long-closed landfill, on Damascus Road near Lewis Road.
“I’m not convinced this is even a contributing site,” Schneiderman said during a conference call at the work session with a Bayside, Queens-based geologist whom the town hired to resample state data and outline possible contamination sources.
The geologist’s report, which was discussed at the work session, found PFOS levels at 4,050 parts per trillion at a well downgradient of the landfill, meaning the sampled water flowed off the property.
Schneiderman pointed to the detection of PFOS and PFOA in a monitoring well on the east side of the airport property in October as a possible link to the East Quogue contamination.
The system would have to be extended to offer service to 106 additional properties at a cost of $1.3 million, said Water Authority CEO Jeff Szabo.
Residents would then have to pay to connect to the mains, though Schneiderman said he would consider a proposal where the town lays out that money, which can be thousands of dollars per household, and recoups the cost through those homeowners’ tax bills.
Meanwhile, Lewis Road area residents remain anxious and question how soon public water could reach the area.
“I think everyone should be connected to public water.” Lucille Morreale, 73, and her husband Robert, 76, who live on Lewis Road, said they are drinking and cooking with bottled water despite a detection of less than 4 parts per trillion of PFOA and no PFOS in their well.
They still shower with well water for lack of another option, the couple said.

Across the country, families are exposed to dangerous chemicals in their water—and the families most at risk are those living on or near military bases.
Their ability to repel oil and water and persist at high temperatures makes them attractive for use in everyday items like nonstick cookware and food packaging, in water-repellent gear, and in firefighting foam used primarily by the US military.
UCS recently released a factsheet that investigated PFAS contamination at US military bases, and the results were unsettling.
A new report from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) says that the threshold for danger from PFAS starts much lower than previously suspected—and that sites across the country are at risk.
Unfortunately, this does not come as a surprise to me.
Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), UCS obtained email correspondence between the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Department of Defense (DoD).
These emails suggested that the administration was interfering with the release of the ATSDR report on PFAS.
Fortunately, the administration’s attempt to bury the PFAS report has backfired, drawing more attention to the issue.
If we’re not listening to science and basing our decisions on the best available information, public health and safety can be compromised and the public’s ability to engage meaningfully suffers.
Members of the military and their families deserve better than having the risks they face concealed.

The Ottawa County Department of Public Health is working with the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and Grand Haven Public Schools after being notified on Monday, Oct. 29, of elevated levels of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) at Grand Haven’s Robinson Elementary School.
Initial test results for Robinson Elementary received by the DEQ on Monday, Oct. 29, found combined perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) levels of 110 parts per trillion, which is above the EPA health advisory level of 70 parts per trillion.
School leaders have immediately restricted access to drinking water in the building, and bottled water is being provided to the school through the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Emergency Management Division and MDHHS.
The DEQ has taken a second sample of the school’s water and expects the results Oct. 31.
No other schools in Grand Haven are at risk from elevated PFAS.
All the other schools in the district are served by the Northwest Ottawa Water System, which has been tested for PFAS and the results were below health advisory levels.
The district is working closely with every agency involved to keep families informed and up-to-date on any developments in this situation.
Drinking is the primary way PFAS can get into the body.
Washing hands and other skin contact is not considered a health concern as PFAS does not move easily through skin.
Once the school’s water test results come back, the DEQ will determine the next steps for households and businesses in the area served by groundwater.

FAIRBANKS — Alaska’s Department of Environmental Conservation seeks to tighten the standards for per- and polyfluoralkyl chemical pollution in a set of regulation changes up for public comment through Nov. 5.
PFAS chemicals are found in many products, including nonstick pots, waterproof fabrics and high-end ski wax.
PFAS can easily spread across property lines because they dissolve in water and move with underground water flows to pollute nearby wells.
Since 2016, Alaska has required PFAS polluters to clean up the source of contamination based on the concentration of two perfluorinated chemicals, perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOS, and perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOA.
The regulations up for comment this month add three additional chemicals to the list of substances that require cleanup when concentrations in groundwater reach a concentration of 70 parts per trillion, which represents about 3 1/2 drops of liquid in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
And the toxicity information, even though its limited, indicates that these compounds cause adverse health affects at similar doses as PFOA and PFOS,” said Sally Schlichting, a policy and regulations manager of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation in Juneau.
By making them part of the cleanup standards, the state would further require PFAS polluters to clean up the source of the chemical and to map the spread of the chemical in the groundwater.
In Fairbanks, the city government has spent more than $3 million since 2016 testing water, delivering clean water and connecting properties with contaminated drinking-water wells to city water.
It’s hard to know whether any additional homes will need to be connected to city water based on the changing state standards, said Fairbanks city engineer Robert Pristash.
In addition to the new cleanup standards for five of the chemicals, a separate standard will apply to water contaminated with a sixth PFAS, perfluorobutanesulfonic acid (PFBS), though it’s only considered harmful at much higher concentrations, 200 parts per trillion.

Home | Environment Union Leader Correspondent Several residents from New Hampshire traveled to Washington this week to participate in the first-ever Senate hearing on polyfluoroalkyl substances, urging legislators to take more action to address the growing contamination.
Laurene Allen of Merrimack reminded federal officials that PFAS chemicals are not regulated or designated as toxic substances.
“Despite an extensive and growing library of health science linking every PFAS compound studied to health disruptive outcomes at lower exposure levels than acknowledged, only PFOA and PFOS currently have health advisories,” Allen wrote in a statement provided to senators and entered into the congressional record on behalf of the Merrimack Citizens for Clean Water.
Several Granite State residents attended the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs’ subcommittee hearing: The Federal Role in the Toxic PFAS Chemical Crisis.
“It is currently estimated that 1,500 drinking water systems serving up to 110 million Americans are contaminated with PFAS chemicals,” said Allen, adding Merrimack is just one of many communities affected by the problem.
Before Wednesday’s special Senate hearing, the Union of Concerned Scientists released a new analysis highlighting the significant health risk posed by PFAS.
“This report reaffirms what concerned Granite Staters already know — urgent federal action is needed to address PFAS contamination at military bases and communities across the country,” Sen. Maggie Hassan said in a release.
“I’m glad to be participating in the first-ever Senate hearing on PFAS this week, but we have far more work to do to protect Granite Staters and Americans from contamination in their drinking water.” Andrea Amico of Testing for Pease in Portsmouth also planned to testify at the hearing, saying it is important to show that there are real people with real families that have been impacted by the widespread contamination.
“We want our government officials to understand what our needs are and what we need from them to help us solve this nationwide problem,” Amico said in a statement.
“We cannot change the past, but I know we have the ability to do better.” NashuaNews@unionleader.com